The holes are against the rules. you can report that beacon. But connecting roads isnt.
Ok, thanks for the discussion, everyone.
I just want to take a moment to express my opinion on what I think is the right ‘approach’ or ‘attitude’ to take when claiming plots in Boundless. In my view, you shouldn’t claim plots unless you have a plan to use them soon. Some plots are more desirable than others due to their proximity to popular portal hubs or popular shops, but you should resist the urge to claim those plots just for the sake of having them. Don’t be a hoarder. Unless you know that you have the capacity to build something there, don’t claim.
If you plan to build, but there will be a delay between the time that you claim and the time when you actually start building, consider placing a sign indicating your plan and add the current date or the date on which you plan to start building. At least, this way, you provide the appearance of an active settlement. Without signage and a date to show that the sign was written recently, vacant claimed plots give a settlement an atmosphere of stagnation, in my opinion.
I think I’m being generous when I suggest that people shouldn’t claim plots unless they have the capacity to use them within 3 weeks. Also, use the new letterboxes to allow others to contact you about your reservations.
So there you have my thoughts on what I believe to be a sufficiently considerate approach to handling plot reservations in Boundless, and it’s these values that motivated my post today. Simply put, the reservation by red doesn’t sit well with me. It seems like selfish hoarding to me.
With that said, most of the respondents to my topic appear to favour a libertarian / light-touch administration style from the developers on this matter. And - ya know what - that kind of appeals to my sensibilities as well.
Ok, fixed 
lol, don’t be all tsundere-like with me. You know you love my jpegs. 
wow that town is so built up… where is the parks? lakes? green spaces? lol
My 1/2 pennies worth. People in that town are all plotted right up to each other… sort of difficult to deem this person who plotted this unbuilt area is any different than the others from just the plot details. IF this person has a history of doing this to be an asshat then that is a different story.
You cannot make a policy to police this in a one size fits all… it has to be on a case by case basis based on “was this an intentional grief attempt”. If Yes then the Devs take action. If Not then its legal, get over it, move on, nothing to see there.
The thing is you will always have people claim large areas and just leave them it’s the drawback of gleamclub aswell as long life beacon fuel but I would rather have this then play a game where you have to log in every 6 days because the 7th day all your stuff fades away. Planets are huge never an issue with finding a spot to build places like ultima can expand in many ways and direction and most people would love neighbors we will just have to take the good with the bad. On a side note the true way to prevent someone from claiming a spot in your path of expansion is to claim all the land ahead of time so you can make sure it’s yours when you go to expand.
And for giving plots to other players if you really want full control of the land you can just beacon the area that your giving them and just give the person the rights to build in the plot at least until a better way comes around.
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As said before… every town/city has these plots. Sure i agree its not right that he has surrounded 1 player so he cant expand. Although this could be he has talked to the owner who maybe have said hes gonna just expand up.
Do i think they look nice? No.
Does he have right to plot and do nothing with it?Yes.
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thats the problem. the owner which all of us know at this time that owns Consurgo plots on many many planets and blocking plots having little to nothing build on them is probably not playing, but i did see him like 3 weeks ago in the game i Pm’ed him and he didnt responded. thats very dirty practice. especially we already had Dev intervention like 3 months ago in Ultima about this guy. And when Dev showed up he miracoulously agreed to remove some plots. 1 week later he plotteed 4x more then he removed on the other side of the city… after that he was immposible to find and talk to. Ive send several screens + locations to devs via discord, cause i asked ppl to send me the screens of the placed hes blocking roads, ppl builds or in any other way. the amount was quite shocking, cause i got like 15 messages with screenies and coords on many planets. this have to be sorted by devs. if so many ppl is desperately trying to do something about someone.
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I agree, devs should intervene in this case. It’s basically a case of griefing, and it has walled in the city for 6+ months, not 3 months. I have no objection to someone doing something with their massive plot, especially if it’s relatively contiguous, but in the case in question the unnamed user walled in an entire half of the biggest city in the game and has permanently blocked expansion for an entire 50% of the city since it was built - and keeps plotting more plots.
You say Ultima is a huge city, and there is space, but look how a single player was able to block city growth for a whole city single-handedly. It is game breaking. Even big plot builders are deterred. Hashmalash (owner of Ultima City) is one. He plays less, in part because of how Red boxed in the whole city. I’m another. I own Ultima Mall and also the big black shadow on the map (see below). Look at how many people are replying to this. Red plot guy is hurting the game experience for hundreds of people, and Red plot guy isn’t even playing. I think the current balance regarding plot claims needs to be addressed. There should be limits to how people are allowed to make giant plot claims and then never use the land - big rectangular plots especially outside of cities should be ok. Big octopus shaped claims that basically wall in 20 people’s builds should be at the very least up for discussion and intervention by the devs.
It’s really a deficiency in the gleam club setup / buying infinite plots for cash. On the one hand the devs don’t want to upset their whales. On the other hand, literally hundreds of people who might play the game more or even consider buying gleam club or other micro transactions are turned off by deficiencies in the way the game is set up.
Maybe “gerrymandered plots” should be removable by devs. Note many builds are relatively square. The giant shadowed area is mine by the way; pretty sure the OP is hanging from my build while taking these pics 
I may be slowly working on it, but at least people see slow progress - and I’m not running around claiming plots in the shape of a sea kraken with 25 tentacles snaking our claiming everything available just so others can’t have it. I think this is a reasonable and moderate way to make a large land claim without griefing people or getting in their way - and if the Red claimed area is ever resolved, I’ll allocate 50 plots to building roads through and around my plots.
That is, if you want to claim a giant 50x50 area, fine, but if you claim a snaking 3x75 plot and never use it, not even to make roads, those undeveloped plots should revert to unclaimed over time - or at least be open to removal by devs. Perhaps you should have to go “mow the grass” on your plots once a week if you want them claimed but undeveloped as green space, or if you want to claim parkland, you should have to build roads through and around it. Or just state in the TOS that you can’t claim a giant gerrymandered plot unless you use it for roads. This is a big problem on many planets, but I think that by making the shape of a plot a criteria, devs can hone in on the problem without blocking legitimate land use. Rectangular claims good, kraken claims bad.
By the way, has anyone ever been able to contact Magenta plot guy? I haven’t seen him do anything in 6 months either, and a single road through a bit of his claimed land would help the city grow (though obviously as the OP’s awesome map shows, Red is the main problem). Hashmalash owns Ultima City by the way, to those who don’t know him - hi Hash! We miss you bud, hope you are well (and LOVE cathedral castle!!)
I know I for one would love to have new neighbors in the area. Evidently Red plot guy is actually nice if you can get a hold of him; he gave Cream guy that 3x3 to make his portal area. However, Red plot guy never plays.
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I understand the frustration, and agree it must be hard to live next to.
However, if you succeed in pressuring the Devs to simply remove all his plots, then we’re on pretty shaky ground.
Maybe remove the ones which snake around others, blocking them, because that is against COC.
I just don’t feel it’s just though, for a group of players to try to remove someone’s plots, simply because they would like them.
I have several ghost plots in and around my sprawling beacons, which are annoying but I’m playing the long game and waiting for them to expire.
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Maybe the intention of the plotter was to create a “wild area” in a city center? Unlikely, I know, but we can’t second guess the intentions of people who plot. Maybe they are accumulating build materials for an epic takeover of Ultima? 
I’ve previously been upset about finding a random plot as I expanded a large build - my sense of aesthetics wanted it to be nice and neat and regular. I posted about it on here and the community changed my mind. It’s a game mechanic I have to adapt to, not change the rules.
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I’m not advocating taking away all his plots. However, with a few strategic roads, hundreds of people would be able to claim plots past his and enjoy the game. Red guy does break TOS in several places by having giant holes in the ground you can die by falling into.
At some point it crosses a line from “playing the game my way with freedom” to griefing.
I do think such things are best addressed through rules rather than addressing individual scenarios and players. People should be able to play without fear of losing their plots without explanation.
Just my opinion.
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I agree with this sentiment, but Gleam Club breaks this mechanic badly. Without gleam club’s effect on beacons, none of this would be a problem and many more people would enjoy the game much more.
Maybe, just maybe, these early cities are now becoming victims of their own success, and not knowing just how big they would become their may not have been the planning early on to try to counter this type of behaviour.
And the ones that are now starting to thrive are the ones that have learned from these early guys and have a better idea of where they want to expand to, and make plans for that.
I know at New Leyden @AeneaGames is very conscious about where the market area or base building area is going to extend to next.
We have made sure that the areas are pre plotted, and roads are laid in perpetration before they become necessary.
So when someone wants a store or to plot an area for a base, it is essentially unplotted for the new arrival to plot and build on.
Not to say that problems don’t crop up, but it’s much easier to manage, and the area that an individual can plot is managed by the city’s owner.
I’m pretty sure that’s the same sort of approach that the guys who have at up the malls have taken. And it seems to be working from the popularity of all these areas.
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Flag away. I’d just like to point out that I’m generally positive about Boundless. It’s a great game!
This is the digital age and we’re all playing on computers. Why can’t part of the TOS be that if you are contacted my Devs for clarification, you must either: a). respond within a certain amount of time set by the Devs, or b). respond within a certain amount of time as you’ve laid out to the Devs (because of vacation or some other away from computer reason)? Also, signs posting your intentions when you are doing suspicious plotting should be encouraged in the TOS.
If the Devs are serious about making the game fun for everyone, including avoiding misunderstandings, communication is key.
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Agree. Also there should be strict line or even like a line where the dev comes to play.
Now its more like “can you do something”. Dev: " i dunno we look into it"
Yeah totally agree. Once plots were offered up for real money and sustained by real money, this has to be off the table. One person’s “wasted plot” is another person’s “future plans” or “nature area” or “none of your business actually”.
If they’re surrounding people and plots need removing to meet CoC that’s another matter. Otherwise it’s their plots, their business.
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Or an investment perhaps. An offer of a couple of million coins might persuade them.
Aware they’re not responding to PMs, maybe they didn’t see them.
Yeah could be that too. I have to remember, when I’ve finished letting my son mess around on his alt, to turn Chat back on as it seems to be an account-wide setting.
Or could be speculating, yes. Which I find distasteful but is an intended part of play by the looks of it. Land doesn’t seem to sell very well though, I’ve seen speculators snap up expiring beacons near my shop but they’ve still not sold a single plot AFAICT.
Shortly after launch, I stumbled upon this lovey island on Sochaltin I, which I thought was perfect for my insane castle build. Unfortunately, at this time I did not have neither the building materials nor the needed machines to craft them. What I had was plots, so I generously plotted the island away. I did not feel guilty at all, since it was an empty space, noone’s build for as far as I could see.
It took me three months until I had enough stuff to actually start building. I used this time to further enhance my plotted area. During this time, some folks had settled on the last unplotted spots. What they saw then must be what you are seeing right now: Their own beautiful builds spreckled between masses of semi-outlined wasteland that seemingly isn’t being taken care of.
Fast forward to now. The castle is coming along nicely (still ridiculously WIP though) and from the ~1000 plots I originally reserved, half are now being owned by my guild mates. “New Cydonia”, as the place is now called, has become the 4th biggest city on the planet.
What I want to say with this: Time is relative. For you, three months waiting for a beacon to run out of fuel is an eternity. For a newbie char, by gathering/processing materials for a big build three months can be a blink of an eye.
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